Movies that are better than the book

[AwkwardlySet]

... I am going to stab your voodoo doll in the face.

A radical but effective way to help with my congestion.

 

[onehitwanda]

A radical but effective way to help with my congestion.

"She will feed your voodoo doll a tincture of brandy, honey and eucalyptus"

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Marketing is another problem. Big-budget movies have so much risk attached that only certain kinds of movies can justify the massive spend necessary for a $200m budget. Small movies can be made profitable with microtargeted ads online. $30-60m movies are too small to do massive wide advertising and too big for microtargeting. And the theatrical exhibition business is facing a million and one challenges.

If you want a villain that isn't audiences, blame venture capital and streaming.

That's what I meant in my reply to Shelby. It's never just one thing. But putting all the valid reasons aside, writers and directors - they are simply worse at their job than they used to be. Much worse.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

"She will feed your voodoo doll a tincture of brandy, honey and eucalyptus"

Careful, you're going to start a Me Too movement for pissing off Wanda..

 

[AwkwardlySet]

"She will feed your voodoo doll a tincture of brandy, honey and eucalyptus"

Just don't add cinnamon under any circumstances...

 

[OffNSFW]

The Shining. Tried the book like three times. Never could get into it. I know King hates how Jack is a monster from the start, rather than a man struggling with demons (alcohol in King’s autobiographical case). But I find the movie compelling.

Okay. This is about to be me on my hobby horse. (Or with my tinfoil hat on. Whichever y'all prefer.) My pet theory is that the film version of The Shining does not qualify as an adaptation of the book. In fact, it's my favorite example of just barely over the line into being an original story.

If we were to reduce it down far enough, a story is what happens when you make up a character and give them a conflict to deal with. Their efforts to deal with that conflict, successful or otherwise, make a story what it is. In a sense, the conflict defines the character, and therefore defines the story.

In the book, Jack has let his family down over and over again. His greatest fear is that if he does it again, he'll lose them forever. Taking care of the Overlook Hotel is his last chance to make good. He has bet his life on it. That's the conflict of the book. It's the thing that defines the character and moves the story forward.

In the film, Jack is superficially the same character. Alcoholic, former schoolteacher, husband, father of one, doesn't have a lot of money, and his job prospects have dwindled to a point where he has to take this shit job in this remote hotel. yet, in the film, he feels like a completely different guy. There must be a reason for that.

In the book, Jack is this frantic, despairing man who loves his family and knows he's on the verge of losing them. In the film, Jack resents his family. He sees them as the source of his problems. He's seething; he feels chained to them. And, now that they're stuck in this hotel, he literally can't get away from them. When the hotel starts to work its magic on him, he doesn't fight it like he does in the book. He welcomes it. It's his liberation. It's not asking him to do anything he hasn't already fantasized about doing.

There has to be a way of distinguishing between an original story and an adaptation. And that includes original stories that are not technically adaptations, but are nevertheless inspired by existing works. The latter, I believe, is what The Shining became (if by a minute degree) when they changed Jack's conflict, and therefore Jack himself, and therefore the story entirely.

I always thought if I ever met Stephen King, I'd lay this on him and see what he thought. He used to teach high school English. Maybe he'd find it compelling. Or maybe he'd call security.

To answer the thread, I do like the book, but the film is a masterpiece. It's a rare scary movie that actually puts me on edge. It's a compendium of persistent dread.

I understand King's objections and I don't even disagree with them. And I get that there's a personal component in it for him, a sense of his own life story that the film largely abandons. But if we're talking about a story that's meant to scare the shit out of people, the film does the job splendidly.

EDIT:

I did not realize I was responding to an exhumed thread. We are all of us influenced in our behavior by ghosts of the past.

 

[onehitwanda]

That's what I meant in my reply to Shelby. It's never just one thing. But putting all the valid reasons aside, writers and directors - they are simply worse at their job than they used to be. Much worse.

I do wonder if modern people's imaginations have been stunted by the simple volume of high-gamut visual and audio stimuli that we are subjected to all day long.

I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night. To a modern young adult it would be terribly hokey and dull, but because I grew up living, eating and breathing that sort of yarn in a world where entertainment was a book or if I was lucky a simulcast foreign-language series, it was the dogs bollocks and it (and stories like it) have informed most of what I love to read - epic quests against impossible odds.

I do wonder if people are now so used to actual magic (holographic displays, supercomputers in your pocket, 3-D live augmented reality, instant gratification) that we've selected towards being *unable to appreciate* magic. It's no longer something that awes us, it's become mundane - so the only way to awe us is to make everything bigger, brighter and bolder. More sex, more explosions, more graphic violence.

I feel like the modern would would never have birthed gems like The Dark Crystal, What Dreams May Come, or the Neverending Story, because market analysis would never have had a decision branch that prioritised imagination and wonder over a guaranteed ROI.

 

[onehitwanda]

EDIT:

I did not realize I was responding to an exhumed thread. We are all of us influenced in our behavior by ghosts of the past.

That is not dead which can eternal lie, and after strange aeons even death may die.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I do wonder if modern people's imaginations have been stunted by the simple volume of high-gamut visual and audio stimuli that we are subjected to all day long.

I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night. To a modern young adult it would be terribly hokey and dull, but because I grew up living, eating and breathing that sort of yarn in a world where entertainment was a book or if I was lucky a simulcast foreign-language series, it was the dogs bollocks and it (and stories like it) have informed most of what I love to read - epic quests against impossible odds.

I do wonder if people are now so used to actual magic (holographic displays, supercomputers in your pocket, 3-D live augmented reality, instant gratification) that we've selected towards being *unable to appreciate* magic. It's no longer something that awes us, it's become mundane - so the only way to awe us is to make everything bigger, brighter and bolder. More sex, more explosions, more graphic violence.

I feel like the modern would would never have birthed gems like The Dark Crystal, What Dreams May Come, or the Neverending Story, because market analysis would never have had a decision branch that prioritised imagination and wonder over a guaranteed ROI.

When I was a kid - even though that was in the eighties, I wasn't spoiled for choice with TV. There were only a couple of channels available. So yes, with the occasional spectacle on TV or in the cinema, my window into the worlds of imagination was mostly books and comics. I used to devour them.

Today I think, with all the vastness of media - TikTok more than anything, kids, teenagers, and young adults even, can't seem to keep their attention on anything. It's no wonder that TikTok is so damn successful with its short video format. That's the attention span of youngsters these days. I see it every day in my school.

I agree that all these empty visual effects seem to work the best for them. It's like a race of who is going to bombard their senses with more flashy information. They can't be bothered with a subtle build-up of plot and characters. Even the games they play are most often the simplistic pick up a weapon and straight into the carnage.

But in the end, is it the audience who dictates the way these movies are, or is it the uncreative Hollywood that sets the standards? Again, I am not sure that all of this comes from just one side.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

I do wonder if modern people's imaginations have been stunted by the simple volume of high-gamut visual and audio stimuli that we are subjected to all day long.

I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade last night. To a modern young adult it would be terribly hokey and dull, but because I grew up living, eating and breathing that sort of yarn in a world where entertainment was a book or if I was lucky a simulcast foreign-language series, it was the dogs bollocks and it (and stories like it) have informed most of what I love to read - epic quests against impossible odds.

I do wonder if people are now so used to actual magic (holographic displays, supercomputers in your pocket, 3-D live augmented reality, instant gratification) that we've selected towards being *unable to appreciate* magic. It's no longer something that awes us, it's become mundane - so the only way to awe us is to make everything bigger, brighter and bolder. More sex, more explosions, more graphic violence.

I feel like the modern would would never have birthed gems like The Dark Crystal, What Dreams May Come, or the Neverending Story, because market analysis would never have had a decision branch that prioritised imagination and wonder over a guaranteed ROI.

I believe the truth is in your last comment, that the decision branch doesn't prioritize(when will you Brits ever learn to spell? ) imagination and wonder over a guaranteed ROI. My boys(early twenties) and I talk abut movies and books and stuff all the time. Like me, and probably you, what they want is a good story.I also think we're seeing studios lean too hard on the Michael Bay effect; if I make the explosions big enough, the story won't matter. To me, what made The Avengers series overall so successful, was that the movies told good stories with amazing effects, rather than focusing on effects at the expense of story.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Since I was adopted into a film family (as in they owned and operated a theater, and then after bankruptcy, worked in them), I've grown up in the exhibition of movies. There are legions of issues that are going to end up killing movie theaters. Wildly expensive building costs, high price tags on digital equipment, and much shorter life expectancy, film projectors that are 90 or 100 years old still work, and some of the servers in the chain my Pops works at have been replaced multiple times. Between 27 projectors, Pops has installed 25 replacement servers in 14 years. The servers and the Media Blocks must be changed together for $8,500 a throw.

Streaming services (especially since the pandemic) have and will continue to rob customers. Pay-per-view happens within weeks of openings or at the same time. It's less expensive for a family of 6 to stay at home and watch than go to a theater. Dad told me, when he installed the digital projectors, he feared that there were 15 years left for theaters. That'll be next year, by the way. The problem for the studio, which isn't a small one, is that they need the theaters to do well because it is still where their biggest share of profit comes from. But they do nothing to steam the bloodletting of their own industry.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

Since I was adopted into a film family (as in they owned and operated a theater, and then after bankruptcy, worked in them), I've grown up in the exhibition of movies. There are legions of issues that are going to end up killing movie theaters. Wildly expensive building costs, high price tags on digital equipment, and much shorter life expectancy, film projectors that are 90 or 100 years old still work, and some of the servers in the chain my Pops works at have been replaced multiple times. Between 27 projectors, Pops has installed 25 replacement servers in 14 years. The servers and the Media Blocks must be changed together for $8,500 a throw.

Streaming services (especially since the pandemic) have and will continue to rob customers. Pay-per-view happens within weeks of openings or at the same time. It's less expensive for a family of 6 to stay at home and watch than go to a theater. Dad told me, when he installed the digital projectors, he feared that there were 15 years left for theaters. That'll be next year, by the way. The problem for the studio, which isn't a small one, is that they need the theaters to do well because it is still where their biggest share of profit comes from. But they do nothing to steam the bloodletting of their own industry.

If they can find a way to hang on, I strongly suspect they'll survive to benefit from the next cycle...in which humans remember that they enjoy leaving the house and being in the company of others. That's a truth that hasn't changed for the last 100,000 years. I'm not making light of the difficulties, far from it; the market has contracted horribly. But we've been here before with the small screen and movie-making and movie-going continued.

The small screen algorithm has discovered that - whaddyaknow! - people like bacon. And so it's serving people huge plates of bacon over and over again. Anyone who serves steak is going to come out fine in that scenario.

 

[onehitwanda]

(when will you Brits ever learn to spell? )

https://i.gifer.com/ScrG.gif

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

https://i.gifer.com/ScrG.gif

I so want to hack your meme library. You always come up with something so bizarrely perfect.

 

[alohadave]

The problem for the studio, which isn't a small one, is that they need the theaters to do well because it is still where their biggest share of profit comes from. But they do nothing to steam the bloodletting of their own industry.

The way I see it, is that theaters may need to pivot to a different model. Showing movies, yes. But also things like community/company meetings, smaller rooms for presentations, maybe even karaoke rooms.

You have a building that is designed to put a good number of people into rooms with A/V and food. Maybe take some business from hotel banquet rooms.

It would be a major shift from how theaters operate now, and I don't think a lot of them would want to bother.

 

[onehitwanda]

I so want to hack your meme library. You always come up with something so bizarrely perfect.

My Google-fu is strong.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Most theaters offer businesses and individuals the opportunity to rent an auditorium during non-showtime hours. Believe me, they do as many of those as they can. However, by contract, they must show movies booked at specific times. It is hard to fulfill that obligation and get enough other traffic to help.

The way I see it, is that theaters may need to pivot to a different model. Showing movies, yes. But also things like community/company meetings, smaller rooms for presentations, maybe even karaoke rooms.

You have a building that is designed to put a good number of people into rooms with A/V and food. Maybe take some business from hotel banquet rooms.

It would be a major shift from how theaters operate now, and I don't think a lot of them would want to bother.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Most theaters offer businesses and individuals the opportunity to rent an auditorium during non-showtime hours. Believe me, they do as many of those as they can. However, by contract, they must show movies booked at specific times. It is hard to fulfill that obligation and get enough other traffic to help.

They also, unfortunately, have to do package deals, taking bad movies for access to good ones. Back when I worked at a theater, we had to show Mortdecai for two weeks to get access to something, maybe Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2. That was essentially just two weeks of dead theater time; we were contractually obligated to show the movie but no one wanted to watch it, largely because it sucks.

 

[Kitty_so_frisky]

The way I see it, is that theaters may need to pivot to a different model. Showing movies, yes. But also things like community/company meetings, smaller rooms for presentations, maybe even karaoke rooms.

You have a building that is designed to put a good number of people into rooms with A/V and food. Maybe take some business from hotel banquet rooms.

It would be a major shift from how theaters operate now, and I don't think a lot of them would want to bother.

Classroom overcrowding has been an issue for more than a couple decades now. Many schools are have been using *temporary* buildings years past their recommended use dates. Gutting the DOE is only going to make things worse too.

Movie theaters don’t do a lot of business on weekday mornings and early afternoons. Depending on location, they could be used as larger scale lecture halls with multimedia presentations if older students (high school and college) from nearby schools could be shuttled there. Wouldn’t even attempt with younger students, the excitement of daily “field trips” would get them too hyped up to concentrate

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The way I see it, is that theaters may need to pivot to a different model. Showing movies, yes. But also things like community/company meetings, smaller rooms for presentations, maybe even karaoke rooms.

You have a building that is designed to put a good number of people into rooms with A/V and food. Maybe take some business from hotel banquet rooms.

It would be a major shift from how theaters operate now, and I don't think a lot of them would want to bother.

UK cinemas are shifting quite a bit - renting out smaller screens for private showings, work events, etc. During Covid, they were used for jury service, keeping jurors and potential jurors away from the courts. Lots have gone upmarket with their cafes and bars - I have to admit a good whisky and slab of carrot cake goes well with a movie. Karaoke rooms might well work.

The big problem seems to be the film distribution and advertising. Only the biggest low-common-denominator films get much publicity. The interesting movies never come to the mainstream cinemas, only the art house ones, but they get very little coverage so by the time a non-geek like me finds a film reviewed, it's stopped being shown. The local mainstream one invariably is showing a superhero film or two, a horror movie, and some kids' animation. On a good day there might be a drama or a thriller, but it'll be Fast and Furious 17 or something.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

UK cinemas are shifting quite a bit - renting out smaller screens for private showings, work events, etc. During Covid, they were used for jury service, keeping jurors and potential jurors away from the courts. Lots have gone upmarket with their cafes and bars - I have to admit a good whisky and slab of carrot cake goes well with a movie. Karaoke rooms might well work.

The big problem seems to be the film distribution and advertising. Only the biggest low-common-denominator films get much publicity. The interesting movies never come to the mainstream cinemas, only the art house ones, but they get very little coverage so by the time a non-geek like me finds a film reviewed, it's stopped being shown. The local mainstream one invariably is showing a superhero film or two, a horror movie, and some kids' animation. On a good day there might be a drama or a thriller, but it'll be Fast and Furious 17 or something.

Sidebar but I'm kind of waiting for Fast and Furious XXX...

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

UK cinemas are shifting quite a bit - renting out smaller screens for private showings, work events, etc. During Covid, they were used for jury service, keeping jurors and potential jurors away from the courts. Lots have gone upmarket with their cafes and bars - I have to admit a good whisky and slab of carrot cake goes well with a movie. Karaoke rooms might well work.

The big problem seems to be the film distribution and advertising. Only the biggest low-common-denominator films get much publicity. The interesting movies never come to the mainstream cinemas, only the art house ones, but they get very little coverage so by the time a non-geek like me finds a film reviewed, it's stopped being shown. The local mainstream one invariably is showing a superhero film or two, a horror movie, and some kids' animation. On a good day there might be a drama or a thriller, but it'll be Fast and Furious 17 or something.

There's the rub: 'cinema' is a whole ecosystem, one that includes newspaper and radio coverage, books, distribution companies, local clubs, television, social media and the online world, a star system etc. - and not just a cinema venue.

You have to build an audience by building an entire culture. The filmmakers are actually doing their bit; the films today are as engaging and amusing as ever before (I'm talking about high end cinema here, the kind of films that play at Cannes and Venice and Berlin) and there's plenty of them. And they are still far, far more satisfying to watch than anything you'll find on a small screen. As I said in an earlier post, cinemas are going to come back a bit. They already are in France, for example.

 

[MillieDynamite]

The kind that don't play at local, small-town theaters. Because they play on 25 to 900 screens only.

There's the rub: 'cinema' is a whole ecosystem, one that includes newspaper and radio coverage, books, distribution companies, local clubs, television, social media and the online world, a star system etc. - and not just a cinema venue.

You have to build an audience by building an entire culture. The filmmakers are actually doing their bit; the films today are as engaging and amusing as ever before (I'm talking about high end cinema here, the kind of films that play at Cannes and Venice and Berlin) and there's plenty of them. And they are still far, far more satisfying to watch than anything you'll find on a small screen. As I said in an earlier post, cinemas are going to come back a bit. They already are in France, for example.